W<\/span>ith nearly 4 million people who call it home, Los Angeles is the most populous city in California. It\u2019s also home to a winding maze of overlapping cannabis laws and ordinances that now includes the state level emergency regulations.<\/p>\n In March 2017, the city\u2019s voters approved Proposition M, and in doing so gave their mayor and city council complete oversight over cannabis regulation. It hasn\u2019t gone that well so far: as of Jan. 11, not one retail outlet has been licensed for adult use sales in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n From NBC News<\/a>:<\/p>\n While Californians voted in November 2016 to legalize marijuana sales to adults over 21, the Los Angeles City Council did not approve ground rules for operating within city limits until Dec. 6. The city\u2019s Department of Cannabis Regulation only began accepting permit applications on Jan. 3, and only from the roughly 200 shops that have been selling marijuana legally to customers who had received approval from a doctor to use medical cannabis.<\/em><\/p>\n Los Angeles has a complicated relationship with dispensaries, and its current medical cannabis retail landscape is the result of a bitterly fought battle between the cannabis industry and a city council that sought to reduce the number of dispensaries operating in the city. By 2015, the city appeared to have won the fight.<\/p>\n You may have heard the term \u201cpre-ICO<\/a>\u201d thrown around in relation to LA dispensaries: ICO stands for \u201cinterim control ordinance\u201d and it was an (allegedly temporary) measure taken by the LA city council to reduce the number of cannabis dispensaries in the city.<\/p>\n Without rehashing the entire legal history<\/a>, let\u2019s just say that between 2007 and the implementation of Prop D<\/a> in 2014, hundreds of cannabis dispensaries were shuttered \u2014 roughly 500, at a time when the city had around 700 in operation.<\/p>\n City Attorney Mike Feuer from\u00a0ABC 7<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cWe have succeeded in closing more than 500 illegal medical marijuana businesses here in the city of Los Angeles.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n While the sun may be setting on the relevance of the ordinance, it still has some bearing on the way licenses are (or are not) distributed in LA: Shops that registered with the city prior to 2007 are known as \u201cpre-ICO\u201d and have priority for licensing under the current city regulations.<\/p>\n According to the Canna Law Blog<\/a>,<\/a> <\/em>the City of Los Angeles\u2019s cannabis department is going to release permits in four phases:<\/p>\n 1) To \u201cProposition M Priority eligible applicants,\u201d i.e., the 135 pre-ICO dispensaries currently operating thanks to immunity from Prop D.<\/em><\/p>\n 2) To non-retail registry eligible applicants, such as \u201cindoor growers and non-volatile manufacturers who were operating before Jan. 1, 2016 and<\/em> whose locations are compliant with certain zoning and sensitive use requirements,\u201d<\/em> according to Manzuri Law\u2019s blog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n 3) To general applicants, but the number of permits given to general applicants must equal the number of permits given to applicants to Los Angeles\u2019s Social Equity Program, which has not been created yet.<\/em><\/p>\n 4) To the general public, in what the city is calling an \u201cunrestricted phase\u201d that will commence \u201cafter the Social Equity Program has been fully funded and implemented as determined by the City Council.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n This staggered licensing plan has created substantial delays for retail cannabis businesses trying to come into compliance. But even if the city got every retail outlet licensed overnight \u2014 and they won\u2019t \u2014 there would still be the matter of licensing the supply side of the legal market. Unfortunately, that picture isn\u2019t any prettier.<\/p>\n Marc Wasserman, an LA-based attorney and senior partner at the Pot Brothers at Law firm, said when it comes to existing medical dispensaries not planning to enter the adult-use market, the issue of licensing is still of major concern, or if it isn\u2019t, it will be by July.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to sell cannabis for adult use, then you need to get a permit from the city and the license from the sate. If you want to sell medical cannabis? Same thing,\u201d Wasserman said. \u201cIt\u2019s the same application, but on the top you check \u2018A\u2019 for adult us and \u2018M\u2019 for medical \u2014 and pay two different fees \u2014 but it\u2019s virtually the same application.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s an important point, and one that\u2019s only going to get sharper as the year goes on: the \u201cgrace period\u201d built into the state\u2019s emergency regulations allows for sale of inventory purchased before Jan. 1 outside of the track and trace system up until July 1. The fact is, even though dispensaries definitely stocked up on excess inventory in anticipation of just this situation, there is still the hard wall of July 1 when, even if they have inventory left over (they won\u2019t), it will be illegal to sell it.<\/p>\n If no cultivators are approved, that means no legal sales. Period.\u00a0That<\/em> is a huge problem facing the entire state, not just Los Angeles.<\/p>\n But even if all the cultivators and manufacturers got licensed overnight \u2014 they won\u2019t \u2014 there would still need to be licensed dispensaries. West Hollywood \u2014 part of the \u201cgreater Los Angeles area,\u201d but still an independent municipality \u2014 is facing the same \u201cdrop deadline\u201d of July 1 to work out the supply side of their licensing scheme, even though they managed to clear two existing dispensaries<\/a> for adult use sales by Jan. 1.<\/p>\n \u201cThe licensed shops will only be able to get inventory from licensed manufacturers or facilities, and those licenses are scarce compared to the number of shops licensed, so that\u2019 going to be a problem until the state can catch up and get enough licenses out,\u201d Wasserman said.<\/p>\n The way LA regulators see it? It\u2019s better to get it right than to get it first. But most LA cannabis businesses trying to find level ground to stand on during a seismic upheaval of the legal cannabis system don\u2019t agree.<\/p>\n From NBC News:<\/p>\n Jerred Kiloh, owner of the Higher Path on Ventura Boulevard in the sprawling San Fernando Valley\u2026 estimates that, based on an average sale of $65 spent by current customers, he is losing as many as 150 customers, and perhaps $10,000, a day.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cBeing first to market is important in any industry, but especially in this industry right now,\u201d said Kiloh, who previously ran a birthing center and a 3D-printing business in Northern California. \u201cWe lose market share every day. \u2026 We are fighting huge losses and I don\u2019t think anybody really cares.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Bottom line? The entire state of California is facing major hurdles in the implementation of its new regulatory framework. What happens (or doesn\u2019t happen) in Los Angeles could be a harbinger of things to come statewide as the year progresses.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong> do you live in LA? Where are you buying your cannabis?<\/p>\n The post Why LA\u2019s Legal Cannabis Market Is Still Delayed<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles is a central hub of California cannabis commerce and culture \u2014 the single largest cannabis market in the state. But when it comes to licensing retailers, cultivators and other cannabis businesses, the City of Angels is having a devil of a time. With nearly 4 million people whoContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[159,223,50,80,523,90,488,2111],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22755"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22755"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22756,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22755\/revisions\/22756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Why LA\u2019s Legal Cannabis Market Is Still Delayed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"